Brookfield Zoo bears to get new digs

Their new home could make an episode of "MTV Cribs" -- a $27 million estate with spacious outdoor yards, dens with skylights and a 15-foot waterfall spilling into a temperature-controlled pool.

Except the inhabitants are not typical celebrities: They can weigh around 800 pounds, they enjoy foraging for food in the dirt and, before they are moved, they are immobilized with a dart.

Three polar bears and two grizzly bears will move next spring into their new residence, the 6-acre Great Bear Wilderness Exhibit at Brookfield Zoo. Today, zoo officials gave a preview of the exhibit, which also will feature bison, bald eagles, ravens and Mexican gray wolves.

Jay Petersen, curator of mammals (top left), leads the press overlooking what will be a deep pool, mainly used by the polar bears, at a preview of Brookfield Zoo's new Great Bear Wilderness exhibit on Tuesday. (Tribune / Chuck Berman)

Zoo officials hope that the exhibit will showcase the positive stories behind the conservation movement by featuring animals that nearly went extinct but have made a comeback because of efforts to protect them.

"Each one of those animals has a conservation story," said Stuart Strahl, president and chief executive officer of the Chicago Zoological Society.

But zoo officials are well-aware that the bears are their top attraction. The new bear exhibit will replace the zoo's current bear habitat, which had not been updated since the 1930s; had no heating or cooling; and was made largely of concrete, which took a toll on the bears' joints, said Mike Brown, the zoo's lead bear keeper.

The new exhibit, which will open May 8, is three times larger than the old habitat and more representative of the bears' natural surroundings, allowing them to rub on trees, dig in dirt and climb on boulders.

The bears are Arky, 25, a female polar bear; Aussie, 24, a male polar bear; Hudson, 3, the offspring of Arky and Aussie; and Jim and Axhi, two 15-year-old male grizzly bears who were orphaned as cubs in Alaska.

Zoo keepers believe that Arky is pregnant but cannot be sure until she would give birth. If she does, she will have access to an igloo-shaped maternity den and a shallow pool where she can teach her cubs how to swim before releasing them in one of the 80,000-gallon pools.